Rob Oller commentary: Richardson is just what Cleveland needs, likes

All due respect to the best quarterbacks in Browns history, but Cleveland is a running backs town. And the city just got a good one. Trent Richardson will flourish on the Lake Erie shore.

Rob Oller, The Columbus Dispatch

All due respect to the best quarterbacks in Browns history, but Cleveland is a running backs town. And the city just got a good one. Trent Richardson will flourish on the Lake Erie shore.

As much as Browns fans loved Bernie Kosar and went wild for Brian Sipe; as much as Otto Graham helped bring seven championships to Cleveland and a quarterback controversy will dominate the offseason news — will it be Colt McCoy or 28-year-old Brandon Weeden? — this franchise and the folk who file into the stadium fall hard for the punishing runner. For Jim Brown. For Leroy Kelly. For Kevin Mack and, briefly, for Peyton Hillis.

The men with smokestack thighs emblematic of the soot-stained vertical landscape, who turn stiff-arms into jousting lances, are lauded as football saviors. They fit the feel and fabric of the place. Clevelanders come right at you. They like their football heroes to do the same. Run between the tackles, boys. Work hard. Play hard. Lower the shoulder pads.

Richardson is a Southern gentleman. The former Alabama tailback recently accompanied to the prom a high-school senior who is a cancer survivor, a kind gesture made in part to honor his own mother, who also is a cancer survivor. The hard edge of his new city will require some adjustment on his part. But on the field? Vintage Cleveland.

“We knew as we went through this process that he was our guy,” Browns coach Pat Shurmur said last night after Cleveland took Richardson with the third overall pick in the NFL draft after swinging a trade with Minnesota to move up one spot. “He’s passionate, productive and durable.”

Shurmur did not immediately mention Richardson’s bonus track: 50 catches for the Crimson Tide the past two seasons. Not only is he strong and shifty, but his memory foam hands will work wonders in Cleveland’s short-pass West Coast offense.

It is by breaking tackles, and by making people miss altogether, however, where Richardson excels.

Even the Browns almost missed him. A well-deserved attaboy goes to Cleveland’s front office for getting their guy this time. After watching Washington swing a deal with St.?Louis last month that gave the Redskins the No.?2 overall pick, which they used to select quarterback Robert Griffin III, the Browns were not about to lose out again.

Cleveland general manager Tom Heckert suspected that a team (probably Tampa Bay) wanted Richardson badly, and that team was working with Minnesota to move up from No. 7 to No. 3.

Cleveland would have none of it, locking down Richardson by making its own deal with the Vikings, which cost the Browns three picks — in the fourth, fifth and seventh rounds — a move that was more of a scratch than a dent, considering Cleveland began the draft with 13 picks.

To some extent, the Browns were playing with house money, some of which they spent on Weeden, the quick-release slinger from Oklahoma State whose arrival immediately sets up a quarterback duel with McCoy.

Regardless of who gets the starting nod, he will benefit from having Richardson in the backfield. Pass protection instantly improves because the Browns now have a playmaker.

A word to those nervous that the Browns took a running back too high, that an able alternative always is available in lower rounds. There is some reason to be uncomfortable. Nine of the 15 NFL teams with a 1,000-yard rusher missed the playoffs last season, as did teams that had eight of the top-10 rushers in yards-per-attempt. The Super Bowl champion New York Giants, meanwhile, had the lowest yards/attempt of any team.

The NFL not only is trending toward spread offenses and empty backfields, but most teams cover the ground game with two running backs. Did Cleveland need to take Richardson so high?

Yes, he is that good. Richardson, 5 feet 9 and 228 pounds, is capable of handling the workload himself, seldom fumbles and is exactly what Cleveland needs. Just give him the ball and watch him run. Browns fans will love this guy.